Archive for the ‘Hip-Hop’ Category

I have a pretty low tolerance for most of what passes for performance art. I think David Blaine is a self-serving, self-promoting charlatan, for instance. His so-called career can’t fade fast enough for me.

So when I got an email that beatbox artist Adam Matta was doing a performance at the new New Museum in Manhattan last Friday, I was thisclose to hitting DELETE before curiosity got the better of me. Okay, so it sounded moderately interesting, especially when I saw the YouTube link. For me, YouTube has become the “show me what you got, kid” source for cutting through all the hype and seeing what someone can really do. In Adam Matta’s case, the answer is a lot.

So what is beatbox? Here’s how that impeccable source of information Wikipedia describes it: “Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion connected with hip hop culture [it has been called the “fifth element” of hip hop] although it is not limited to hip hop music… It is primarily concerned with the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and more. It may also involve singing, vocal imitation of turntablism, the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments.” Here’s what it sounds like, as practiced by Mr. Matta [keep in mind that he is making all the sounds you hear on this clip with his mouth—I particularly like the “turntable” stuff toward the end]:

In some ways, it feels to me like a more focused, more urban version of what Bobby McFerrin does. In fact, Matta has performed with Bobby’s son Taylor McFerrin, a hip-hop producer and performer building on his father’s tradition of one-man showmanship.

Matta is a visual artist too; he has studied and exhibited in Italy and New York. His media include painting, drawing and, not surprisingly, a performance-based medium he calls “bicycle drawing.” With paint on his mountain bike tires, he does bike tricks on canvas mounted on board. You can find out more about this part of his career as well as his music at his website.

The YouTube video below illustrates his art background. In addition to his voice, he uses a homemade instrument, an homage to one of Dada artist Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades, Bicycle Wheel, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Matta’s version utilizes a tape head and recording tape stretched around the wheel rim, allowing him to play samples with it.

And finally, a clip of Adam Matta and fellow performer Kimba. Kimba, a parrot, adds only a little to the vocals, but her rhythm is impeccable.

In 1991, London-based producer Geoff Wilkinson was summoned to EMI Music’s London offices. He had released a 12-inch dance single that was getting a lot of airplay, The Band Played The Boogie. On it, he’d sampled a jazz tune originally released on Blue Note Records, now owned by EMI. Instead of getting sued, he somehow managed to talk his way into Blue Note’s vaunted jazz vaults.

The result for Us3—Wilkinson and production partner Mel Simpson—was the groundbreaking Hand on the Torch, originally released in 1993. The result for Blue Note was its first album ever to hit Platinum [selling one million copies].

The whole idea of teaming with hip-hop and rap artists was a risky one for the venerable jazz label. “It was a brave decision by [Blue Note President] Bruce Lundvall,” Wilkinson said, “but he made me record some demos first, to prove I could do it.” One of those demos became the first track of the album and my personal favorite, Cantaloop [Flip Fantasia]. It combines heavy samples from Herbie Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island and a sampled intro from an Art Blakey album with vocals by rapper Rahsaan Kelly and trumpet by Gerard Presencer.

Simpson does all the keyboard work on the album; Wilkinson handles samples and scratches, and the two share programming credits. Other personnel include rappers Kobie Powell and Tukka Yoot, sax players Ed Jones and Mike Smith, trombonist Dennis Rollins, guitarist Tony Remy, pianist Matt Cooper and backing vocalist Marie Harper.

What could have been a musical trainwreck is instead a brilliant conversation between two very different music genres. The music video above [thank you, YouTube] of Cantaloop [Flip Fantasia] demonstrates the careful intertwining beautifully. As with many music videos, though, the visuals don’t live up to the music. You’ll probably get more from the music if you close your eyes. Seriously.

Throughout Hand on the Torch, the musicians show a real sensitivity to the jazz samples. They bring some nice surprises to it too. On the cut Eleven Long Years, they actually uncover a reggae-friendly rhythm in Horace Silver’s Song for my Father. The result is electrifying.

Maybe it’s because this album is already nearly 15 years old, but the lyrics show refreshing restraint when it comes to glorifying violence and the gangsta lifestyle. The subjects are there, of course—they’re part of urban life. But tracks like Just Another Brother are typical of their take on the topic; it tells stories that show how whatever circumstances brought someone to violence, the result is always the same—he becomes “just another brother on lock-down.” The bragging and posturing inherent in much of hip-hop and rap is of course there too, but even this is mostly and refreshingly free of misogyny.

There’s also a two-disk import version of The Hand on the Torch; the second disk contains the original jazz tracks that Wilkinson and company sampled. As much as I love jazz, I have to think that hearing them might be like having a magician explain how he does a trick. We always beg to know the secret, but when the magic is explained, we’re always disappointed.